@theconversationau
The claim is that the ATO has no power to completely write off a tax debt.

So what happens when a tax debt is absolutely unpayable, e.g. a person with no assets dies while owing a tax debt? Does the ATO keep that debt on their books forever because they can't write it off?

If they don't keep it forever then they must be using some administrative basis to write it off (i.e. erase it from their records).

If they do (absurdly) keep the debt forever then they must be using some administrative basis to determine that they won't take any further action because it's not practical.

That suggests there ought to be some existing mechanism that could be used to ignore or write off the debts given a suitable tweaking of the administrative definitions.

It would also be interesting to know what the position would be if the ATO had accidentally deleted the records without backup.

#AusPol #RoboTax